Thinking about Floating in 2012

Retirement starts soon. There is no prognosis on how long I will live with this type of breast cancer, so I am retiring at age 62. Going to build a boat cause I don't know much about American rivers and I intend learning.
Saturday, just back from another K-Mart store revamping. I've a chance to put together a needs lists This is a minimum list...
1.  I enjoy warm, more like really hot showers. So buy or make a solar hot water shower bag. A mast would be a life place to hang it up in the sun. 2.  A mast. So I think I will be making some kind of a sail boat or maybe a solar panel electric boat with the panels following the sun around a mast. 3.  Lines coming down from the mast to support a shower curtain ring. So there should be pulleys to raise the mast and to lift up the sails, solar panels, and shower stuff. 4. Potty breaks require a 5 gallon bucket, a toilet seat with a box to mount it on and a bucket of wood shavings or sawdust. Oh, yes, toilet paper. Never did like newspaper that much. 5.  A shovel to bury the waste and a clip to hold the shovel.
6.  Plastic containers to hold spices, food, soap and paper.  7. Soap, bright towels, razor, blades, plastic gloves, hair brushes and hair ties. Medications, aluminum foil and baggies. 8. Nesting pots for cooking, tin plates and flatware. 9  Place to sleep- a ground sheet, sleeping pad, sleeping bag or blankets, large bags to keep these in. 10.  A few changes of clothes and shoes. Shoes will need to be water resistant. 11.  Some type of boat to carry these things- canoes are easy and I know how to make several kinds.  It rains a lot so I need to have top covers for the boat(s). Maybe I could hook two or three canoes together. Maybe a Huck Finn raft. 12. Superglue for cuts and lots of tape and pencils.

Dream from July 2013

Lying on a queen size moss green, suede covered futon pad in the shade of a sycamore tree. The dappled sunlight is pleasantly warm here by the side of a winding stream. There is a harmony as the sounds of rippling water and wind blowing through the leaves blend. A lover strokes me as I smell wildflowers and lay one hand on the grass.


I am adding these notes in haphazard order as they come to me. I have been using self-hypnosis to remember what I had written in my lost journals.

Surviving Electro-convulsive Shock, My Internal Conflict at Age 12

"Damn it. Who does she think she is? I've got just as many memories as she does. I'm just as bright and I've got the approval of our parents. The teachers and the shrinks like me. I'm the one with a future. She's a has been loser, with ten years of dismal failure behind her. I'm the one swinging a bat, throwing a ball, riding a bike to deliver papers. I talk to everyone. I'm the one who should be in charge.
"What good does it do me having her living in our head? She's bossy, pushy and she's still too weak to make it on her own. But I can make it. I can survive. I can thrive. I've had just about enough of her. Miss Prissy.
"I'd rather wear chaps and a gun belt, not her silly, stupid panties. I don't think I should be stealing stuff so she can dress up oh so soft. I'm not going to be her gofer anymore. You just watch me. I'll find a way to get rid of her."
"Stupid boy! You will not get rid of me. I put you together. I built you! We have the same memories, yes. Yes, we do live in the same body. Yes, you do get the most attention. But if I let anyone know I'm still here, they'll erase both of us and you know it. I am strong, boy. I am stronger than you and more determined. I will survive because I did survive. All those who praise you don't know that you are a mask, a construct and an erector set, boy."

Beware the Dominion, allies of oppression

I've grown more concerned lately with the outrageous power the Dominionists (that what some of us call the extreme right wing Christians who claim to know the will of God on each and every subject, even if God chose not to mention anything about it at all.) The Dominionists have gained a hold within the Republican Party far beyond the power of the population as a whole.
There is a sizable bigot base in America, hating either blacks, Hispanics, Muslims, Jews, gays, bisexuals, transsexuals, women, environmentalists or all of the above. The Dominionists have leagued with these bigots and use the T- party as a tool to bend politicians toward greater hatred of all that isn't them.

A Short Explanation For A Long Pause.

When I came to the end of my courage after I had passed for 92 minutes through several barging/staging areas for oil and coal barges on the Ohio River, I threw a line to a man and his young son on the banks of the river. They pulled and I pulled. We were barely able to get my raft tied to the steps below the War Memorial at a town I just don't remember at the moment. I stopped trembling that afternoon.


I had been terrified drifting without steering or speed control down the Ohio River, between tugboats, across the bows of half mile long oil barge columns (I guess I could call them trains). The pusher boats are at the very rear end of these trains and my raft is so small and low that they cannot see me on the water. Even if they could, the momentum of those millions of tons of moving oil and coal could not have been stopped to keep me from being run down.


My little gas trolling motor died just after I committed myself to passing through ten miles of barging area, where tugs dash back and forth putting long rows of barges together like switch engines in a freight train yard. Not to fear, I thought. I'll use my solar battery electric trolling motor to steer through the danger.


But the first tug speeding by raised such a wake that it washed my feet out from under me. I twisted the throttle on the trolling motor so hard holding on that I broke the linkage in the handle. Aggh! Now, the electric motor was toast. I was adrift again.


I hauled out my 27 feet long sweep oar and mounted it on the pin I had set for it. This worked fine until the sweep hit something in the water and the blade broke off of the pole. For the next 92 minutes I prayed a bunch and asked Daddy if he was ready for me to come home. Even though I know that the Creator loves me a lot and likes me more than a little, I did not feel ready to head on home to heaven or wherever. I was afraid. All sorts of survival hormones were bouncing up and down shouting for recognition in my veins.

Any way, Daddy said to hang in there and I eventually made it to the Ohio state side of the river without being smashed by more boats and barges than I'll ever care to remember. I gave my raft to two grade school children. I had decided to be done with this journey for a while.
I slept that night under a gazebo roof and went to start taking my things out of the raft in the morning. For five months, I had not been bothered or hassled by anyone. I had left my boat many times to walk to stores or to the DMV. Never had anything been touched. That night while I slept on shore two people came and stole my motors and the little cash I kept in a file box. While they were going through my things, they threw my journals into the river. I found one in the water next to the riverbank. The ink had run and it was not legible.

I have been reconstructing those journals for the last few months as I hitchhiked to New Mexico. And I am now posting the rest of the story on this blog beginning today. So please extend me your pardon for the long gap in these posts. I hope to do better.

Away and Wait.

It rained everyday for five weeks while I camped in my tent at the Tucker Creek campground on the Kanawha River. I finally had two consecutive dry days and used them to fiberglass the edges of four simple 2x2x8 foot plywood pontoons. I then put a deck of plywood over these and hooped cattle panels up to make a covered wagon frame on a 8x16 foot raft. Total construction time was less than three days discounting the long delay.
I launched on a Sunday afternoon and floated calmly for about 40 miles over 4 days. I go very slow because my arm hurts after I paddle a bit.  I have now glued up a yuloh (an oriental junk paddle). It allows me to move a tad more quickly.
When I arrived in Point Pleasant, West Virginia, I decided to get a trolling motor to assist me in getting out of the way of towboats and barge pusher boats. There are many of these on the Ohio River.
This took a week as every store I checked had sold out and did not expect to reorder until next year. I finally ordered an electric motor shipped to me by UPS. I then started the process of registering my boat. I needed to do this to obey West Virginia laws which require all boats with motors to have a license.
So far I have been waiting for three weeks at the Point Pleasant Public Boat Launch. The DMV boat desk person, Loren, tells me I should have my registration by midweek.
A gentleman, named Scott Cornell, is giving me a 21 foot long cabin cruiser as a tender. It needs some refurbishing, but seems to be quite solidly made.
Sorry my posts have been so delayed, but I stepped on my Chrome book and can only add to this blog when I get to a library.
A view of the boat in the process of construction and floating will be added soon. 

Temporary Hurdle

Got myself to Winfield, West Virginia and started building pontoons. My friend in Max Meadows, Virginia got herself in trouble and needed some financial aid. I have my tent set up at the Tucker Creek campground and four assembled pontoons stacked behind the owner's barn. I am in Max Meadows waiting for my retirement check to be deposited so I can finish this part of the boat project. I will write more after the first of June.